Masdevallia aptera Luer & L.O'Shaughn. 2004 SUBGENUS Masdevallia SECTION Masdevallia SUBSECTION Caudatae Veitch 1889
Photo by © Lourens Grobler
TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website
LATE
Common Name or Meaning The Wingless Masdevallia [refers to the wingless lip and petals]
Flower Size .8" [2 cm]
Found in Zamora-Chinchipe province of Ecuador at elevations around 2000 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool to cold growing, caespitose epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by 2, thin, tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, obtuse, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late spring on a slender, arising from low on the ramicaul, provided with a bract at the base, more or less erect, 2" [5 cm] long including the 1" [2.5 cm] long peduncle, single flowered inflorescence with a thin tubular, just shorter than the pedicel floral bract.
"The flower is not unusual, the sepals being connate into a deep cup with the laterals expanded. Both the petals and lip are oblong without wings." Luer 2004
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVI Pleurothallis subgenus Acianthera and Three Allied subgenera, A Second Century of new Species of Stelis of Ecuador, Epibator, Ophidion and Zootrophion Luer 2004 drawing fide; Orchids Masdevallia with its segregates including Dracula Zelenko 2014 photo fide;
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